Friendly Advice
by Aeta Plokha
Summary: As captain of the task force 141, MacTavish gives out advice on a daily basis. It's something he's come to expect. He just never thought it would be the relationship kind, but he'll do anything to help men. GhostxRoach. This means SLASH.
1. Chapter 1

_Rating: t for language, violence, suggestive themes and an all- around good time._

_Summary: as captain of the task force 141, MacTavish gives out advice on a daily basis. But he never thought it would be the relationship kind. GhostxRoach. This means SLASH._

I might as well mention that I hate writing first chapters. There's more of this, and I swear it's not as lame and horrible as this one.

* * *

Captain MacTavish had always been overly protective of his task force, like any good commander should be. He feels like a father towards them and tries to keep them safe, or as safe as you can be in this profession, anyways. More to the point, he knows everything about his men, their comings and goings, strengths and shortcomings, favorite weapons, everything down to their favorite food.

MacTavish knows, for instance, of Ghost's proficiency for ACRs and computers. He knows the reason Ghost wears that skull balaclava 24/7, he knows about his fucked-up past, of his nightmares and hallucinations, of that brief period in Ghost's life where he thought he was going insane. He knows how Ghost lost everyone that was close to him, why Ghost keeps a barrier around himself, not letting anyone past it, because he believes that distance is a good strategy when it comes to relationships. Yet his sense of humor and laid-back attitude make him a remarkable squad leader, the irony of which is not lost on MacTavish.

Even the newest addition to their team, Roach, has a list of unique traits and MacTavish prides himself on knowing them all. Real name? Gary Sanderson. Too talkative, except on missions, where you'd be hard-pressed to get a word out of him. Strong points? Demolitions and heavy weaponry. Shortcomings? Pistols, and stealth ops, and a slightly ..._conspicuous_ fixation with Ghost.

In a way, it's almost painfully obvious. Roach follows Ghost everywhere like an overeager puppy; he volunteers himself for extra work if it involves Ghost; his eyes light up with every scrap of praise Ghost throws at him. MacTavish could put it off as hero-worship, maybe, if it wasn't the fact that he's _seen_ the way Roach stares at Ghost whenever they happen to be in the same room, the way he blushes whenever he and Ghost hold a conversation, the way his eyes linger just a _second _too long on Ghost in the showers. Yeah. Ob-_bloody_-vious.

MacTavish realizes that Ghost knows this, but Roach does not notice, or perhaps he does not care. He (MacTavish) had often thought about maybe taking Roach aside and explaining that even Ghost could tell Roach was staring at his ass, but he can never put it into better terms than that and so he lets the matter drop. He doesn't say anything to Ghost, either, because Ghost can take care of himself and the attention doesn't seem to bother him. On a few occasions MacTavish even swears that he returns it.

So, maybe, he figures there might be a little more than friendship going on here. But it's not in his place to say anything. Sure, if their relationship threw a wrench into the finely-tuned machine that is _his_ task force, he would step forward and stop it in no time. But, as it is, neither of them is really doing anything wrong, and as long as it doesn't disrupts the 141, he is fully prepared to let it slide.

That's why he figures it's probably none of his business when the task force visits a local pub and Ghost gets a little _too_ smashed and becomes a little _too_ friendly towards Roach, leaning against him with an arm thrown around the younger man's shoulders, mouth close to his ears, murmuring things that cause Roach to blush occasionally. But its off-hours, and the weekend, and hell, Roach was probably enjoying the affection, so MacTavish sees no need to worry. Until much later, that is, when he looses track of the two of them and its last call and he realizes suddenly that he hasn't seen them for an hour.

He finds them, on accident, when he returns to base and takes a walk around the compound before turning in. They're behind one of the storerooms, mouths locked together, Roach pinned up against the wall, Ghost's hand shoved down the younger man's pants. MacTavish hesitates, but decides not to say anything, so they don't notice him. As he returns indoors he makes a mental note to caution both of them about The Dangers of Drinking Too Much and Doing Something You Might Regret When You're Sober. For now, though, he'll let the two of them enjoy each other. In private.

That was his plan, anyways. But when General Shepherd contacts him at 0301 in the morning, saying something about a downed ACS satellite and Russian Ultranationalists and a two-man stealth op, he knows he has no choice but to wake up his second-in-command.

With that thought in mind, MacTavish heads off to Ghost's quarters, leery of what he might find there. He is only a bit surprised when he turns a corner in a hallway and comes face-to-face with Roach, who is emerging from Ghost's room, a grin on his face. He freezes when he sees MacTavish.

"Ah! Captain. Uh. Didn't see you there." Roach mumbles, rubbing his neck nervously and having the good sense to look flustered. "Did you- did you want to talk to Ghost? Because he's really drunk. Actually he passed out like half an hour ago. And I would personally, ah, advise against waking h-"

MacTavish is not pleased about being woken up at three in the morning, which is perhaps why he cuts Roach's rambling short, sounding a bit grumpier than he meant to. "Well that's bloody lovely, because General Shepherd just gave me a mission and the helicopter is leaving in fifteen minutes and I'd really appreciate it if you would _move._"

Roach blinks and the hand on his neck stills, but he does not step away from Ghost's door. "Sir, I could go instead."

"You, Roach?" MacTavish says doubtfully. "It's a stealth mission that involves a lot of climbing. You're afraid of heights. You whine about the cold. Sure, you're good at blowing things up, but you're not exactly up to speed on your stealth."

"No, I can do it, really!" Roach protests, too loud and chipper at this time in the morning. "This way you won't have to wake Ghost up. I'm functioning better than _he _is at the moment. Also; not afraid of heights."

He takes his hand off his neck and MacTavish notices several crescent-shaped bruises there, but he doesn't comment on them because what (who) Roach does in his free time is up to Roach and he's got a satellite to worry about.

"Right. Well. You've got," he checks his watch, "fourteen minutes until the chopper leaves. Get your cold-weather gear and I swear to God if I hear you whining—"

Roach, for his part, just smiles and nods and follows his captain out the hall, humming slightly.

* * *

Also, I do not own Call of Duty. Any of them.

Reviews are greatly appreciated.


	2. Chapter 2

Did you know that when you reinstall windows, you have to reinstall MS Word, too? Yeah, I didn't know that either, so I wrote this in notepad instead. Please ignore the spelling/grammar mistakes, I usually overuse spellchecker and I couldn't this time... oh well. On to chapter two!

* * *

"Holy shit."  
Roach gapes up at the cliff. From this angle it looked less a cliff and more a 'sheer, insurmountable wall of ice,' and MacTavish, busy checking his gear one last notices a slight look of terror cross Roach's face as he says quietly "We're going up there?"  
"Right." He swings his ice picks experimentally and even thought Roach is wearing thick gloves Soap can tell that the sergeant has his in a white-knuckle death-grip.  
"The hangar is at the top?"  
"Thought heights didn't bother you."  
He grimaces. "Heights, sir, no. They don't bother me at all. Heck, I wouldn't even mind the falling, so much. What gets to me is the part where your neck snaps as it collides with the ground while traveling several hundred kilometers per second. That's what I'm not too... keen... on." He says nervously and glances again at the cliff; shifting his ice picks, he frees one hand and rubs the back of his neck, something that MacTavish notes and files away in his mind under the file marked_ Roach_: possibly a sign of nervousness. Either that or those hickeys were a source of comfort, but he refuses to linger on that thought.  
Roach was still chattering but MacTavish pays little attention because he's more concerned about getting through this mission alive. _Two men against an entire base_. This would have been so much easier with Ghost here.  
"Start climbing Roach," He says tersely. Soap figures that command must have been the official start of the mission because with a final "Oh dear god" and one last longing look at the helicopter behind them, Roach starts climbing and stops talking.  
MacTavish isn't much of a conversationalist, either, and the next hours pass in silence broken only by the scream of jets taking off and the occasional muffled curse from Roach, who, despite all his pretenses, really did hate heights.

* * *

"Roach, there's a ledge up here where we can rest for a minute," MacTavish calls down to his subordinate, already leaning against the sheltered wall and busy lighting a cigar. He can hear Roach grunt something in affirmation as he pulls himself into view, puffing. As soon as his hands hit the ledge he scrambles away from its edge, flopping down on the ice next to his captain and fumbling with a cigarette pack before holding one up to his captains proffered lighter. "How you holding up?" He asks, because despite all his pretenses, really did care about his young sergeant.  
"Fairly well actually. Climbing really takes your mind off the fact that at any second your icepicks could slip and you could plummet straight down for thousands of miles-"  
"Sanderson," he says, in a kindly-shut-up-now tone of voice.  
"Sorry sir." He doesn't seem sorry, though, MacTavish notes in the silence that follows. Eyes closed, face split in a wide grin, it's an easy task to guess where his mind is at as he takes a deep drag on his cigarette and one hand creeps up to touch the bruises that are hidden beneath his cold-weather gear. MacTavish, too, thinks back to last night's activities and figures its the best time to ask all those questions he should have asked before.  
"Sanderson," he begins again.  
"Yeah, captain?" Roach keeps his eyes shut.  
Something about his expression makes Soap suspects he's not paying close attention, so he decides to be very straightforward.  
"How long have you and Ghost having sex?"  
He's not surprised when Roach barely reacts at all, lazily opening one eye to stare at his captain. "Oh, a day. Actually- yesterday?- or, well, last night. Six hours ago. Maybe more than that, I'm a little fuzzy on the details and to be honest I sort of lost track of time after-" Roach finally realizes he's rambling and sits up, tossing the butt of his cigarette off the side of the cliff. "Why so curious, captain?"

MacTavish gives Roach a long look and waits until before replying in a matter-of-fact tone "I'm the captain of the 141, Roach. It's my _job_ to know everything about everybody in my task force. Besides, you two weren't exactly being secretive last night, were you?" Roach goes beet red and says nothing, kicking the edge of the ice with his heels.  
"How- how much did you see?" he finally asks in a strained voice.  
When he hears his captain's explanation, though, he laughs in relief; when MacTavish raises his eyebrows in a silent question he says "Oh, well, you know how Ghost gets when he's drunk? I, uh, had a hard time persuading him to move our activities... indoors." He says, and smiles guiltily at his captain. "If you had spotted us five minutes later..." He says, and his smile quickly turns into a mischievous grin; MacTavish is about to make a remark about that when Roach takes their conversation in a whole different direction.  
"Er, actually, sir, I was wondering. Uh he- Ghost, I mean- wears that bandanna all the time; and it's kind of hard to tell what he's thinking, or at least, it is for me but that's probably just because I'm the FNG but I figure that you probably know him more and-"  
"This story has a point, right?"  
Roach continues unfazed, ignoring the comment. "-I was wondering. Okay, so obviously I'm attracted to him. I mean, I wasn't trying to hide anything." He pauses and taps his goggles thoughtfully. "Yeah, I definitely wasn't holding back. I guess, I don't know, he's responded far more than I thought he would, but last night," He glances at his captain again and MacTavish notes the honesty in those wide brown eyes. "Last night went way beyond anything except my wildest dreams; and okay, I know this is going to sound kind of stupid but I really do like him, you know, but sometimes, he's just so damn unreadable..." Roach let out another breath and his last statement came out in one big rush "Anyway, what I mean to say is, you're his best mate, right, and - has he ever said anything about me? You know, like, in that sort of way?" MacTavish thinks for a second, trying to work through his sergeant's rather lengthy sentence in his head, before saying slowly, "I don't think the topic has ever come up,"  
"Right, yeah." Gary says, sighing. "That's kind of what I expected but-"  
"But if it has," MacTavish continues, interrupting him,"I'm sure he remembers it better. Have you tried _talking _to him?"  
"Well, I was getting around to it, but then he decided to..." he trails off, and his hand is halfway to his neck before he glances at MacTavish and thinks better of it. "So you think I should talk to him about it, then?"  
MacTavish takes another drag on his cigar; it's just about finished and he offers Sanderson a rare smile. "Works wonders, communication."  
Roach lets out a surprised laugh as Soap stretches, flicks the remains of his cigar over the ledge. "Break's over, Roach. Let's go."

* * *

A/N: Soooo this chapter made me feel kind of stupid. WTVS, I guess. Next up: Ghost's turn.


End file.
